Tiahleigh Palmer case prompts calls for change

A 12-year-old girl is dropped at school by her carer. She says goodbye, grabs her backpack and walks off. It's an entirely unremarkable scene played out thousands of times across the country. However on October 30, things were different for Tiahleigh Palmer.

Somehow, six days later, her body would be found dead on the banks of a river 40 kilometres away.

The police investigation into Tiah's suspicious death continues. The post-mortem is yet to return a cause of death, but the case is being treated as a homicide. Despite searches of the Pimpama River, the girl's backpack and Marsden State High School uniform remain missing.

Tiahleigh Palmer.

Photo: Queensland Police Service.

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Investigators say there are no suspects; all of the girl's close associates seem to be in the clear. On Friday, Superintendent Dave Hutchinson confirmed that there was evidence Tiah hatched a plan to wag school on October 30 and police believe some schoolmates have not told detectives everything they know. Appeals for anyone with dash-cam footage, both near the school and near the river, are still being made.

Even though details of Tiah's demise are unclear, the case has raised questions about how missing persons cases in Queensland are handled.

Tiah was a foster child who had gone missing before, but never for more than a few hours. When she was to go missing on October 30, her guardians were not legally permitted to make a public plea for help. Her biological mother was also restricted. When Tiah was eventually found dead there was disbelief that it took the police six days to issue a media release about the missing girl. Five hours after the alert was issued Tiah's body was discovered by a group of fishermen.

Last week Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk ordered an immediate review into how the case was handled, but stopped short of criticising investigators.

Mourners at Tiahleigh Palmer's funeral on Saturday.

Photo: Glenn Hunt

Three days after the body was found, Superintendent Hutchinson was steadfast in his defence of the officers who first investigated Tiah's disappearance. He said police conducted extensive inquiries immediately after receiving the missing persons report, even though they did not make a public appeal.

"They visited friends, they visited family, they visited associates, they went to a number of places that Tiah had been known to go previously under these circumstances, they conducted patrols, they visited shopping centres, they obtained CCTV from locations," he said.

The police investigation, headed by Superintendent Dave Hutchinson, includes about 60 detectives.

Photo: Chris Hyde/File photo

"During this period they were receiving information of sightings of Tiah in various locations."

Police returned to the Pimpama River but failed to find the girl's missing backpack or school uniform.

Photo: Bradley Kanaris

The case is progressing, albeit slowly, with a team of 60 detectives working around the clock on the investigation.

"We've certainly collated a vast amount of information. And in any investigation like this, this is the normal procedure we go through," Superintendent Hutchinson said.

"History shows that in the past that an offender is usually caught up in that first cache of information.

"The real task is to then go through that information and analyse it, collate it, and then hopefully come out with some direction out of it."

Police statistics show there would have been 727 public appeals last financial year if Queensland Police issued media alerts every time a child aged between 0 and 12 went missing. During the same period a further 2303 reports were made for others aged between 13 and 15.

Nearly all of those children were found safe.

Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston said she did not want to engage in a "finger-pointing exercise", but believed the six days it took police to alert the public about Tiah Palmer's disappearance highlighted issues with the foster care system.

"I understand there's about 100 kids in care in Queensland missing at any one time. Most of the time they show up safe but not in this case," she said.

"If your child went missing, you'd be racing to the media, you'd be screaming from the rooftops...If that child is in care, those biological and foster parents don't have that same freedom.

"It wasn't until day six that a public alert was issued in this case and I'm concerned that because Tiah was in care that had something to do with that."

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA - NOVEMBER 13: Missing 12 YO school girl Tiahleigh Palmer. Police manning a Crime Stoppers marquee in front of Marsden State High School . Police are handing information out and posters have been placed around the school fences of the missing girl .on November 13, 2015 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Robert Shakespeare/Fairfax Media)

Mr Smith and Ms Johnston believe foster parents should be allowed to alert missing persons pages on Facebook whose members can then share details with their networks.

"Foster carers are told never to do that, because that can expose a child as being a child in care...they adhere to that otherwise there's ramifications," Mr Smith said.

"You could be seen by some as breaching the act, which is essentially breaking the law. Now that's open to interpretation but that's what carers are told.

"Social media is one of those things that can be used quickly and have a positive effect without denigrating the family or the child in any way."

Toowoomba woman Nicole Morris is the administrator of one of those social media pages. The Australian Missing Persons Register has more than 92,000 Facebook "fans", along with a website Ms Morris set up in 2005.

In the last decade she has put out thousands of alerts for missing people in her role as the register's director.

Ms Morris said she has strict guidelines before posting alerts, including the requirement for a formal report to be made to police and family or guardians signing a consent form.

Shortly after Tiah Palmer was reported missing, Ms Morris said she put up a missing persons alert at the request of the girl's biological mother but was required to remove it because it could have breached the law.

Legal constraints are a common problem Ms Morris says she faces while running her register, which needs many devoted hours of work each week.

"The increase in parental abductions is massive. It's really hard when you've got this frantic parent when you're trying to explain you can't publish the photo because the law's there to protect the child," she said.

Hetty Johnston: "clumsy system" not in the best interests of children in care.

Photo: Harrison Saragossi

Ms Johnston, Mr Smith and Ms Morris agree that putting out media alerts every time a child goes missing is not the solution because they will lose their effectiveness.

"We need to look at a staged response to this, in terms of what information we release to the community and how we do it," Ms Johnston said.

"If a child goes missing, if they have met foul play, those first few hours on the first day are critical. We don't want paedophiles to get the message that foster kids in care are better targets."